At one point in time in California, Arthur Samish, a political lobbist,
wielded more power on some issues than the Governor of California. He achieved
this power through making campaign contributions to state legislators. He called
it a policy of "select and elect." However a lobbyist with adequate funds would
would not have to be an astute judge of who was going win elections; if necessary
a lobbyist could simply
contributed to both major party candidates so that whoever won would feel
beholding to him. He also knew the procedures of the legislative process in
such intimate detail that he could hold up legislation on technicalities.
He acquired this intimate knowledge from having worked as a young man
as a page and later clerk for the California General Assembly, the lower
house of the state legislature. As a page he generally only ran errands
for the assemblymen but as a clerk he was responsible for maintaining files for
the historical record. Later, at age twenty three, he became the
"Engrossing and Enrolling Clerk" for the California Legislature. In this
position he was responsible for seeing that proposed legislation went
through the correct legislative procedure. This meant that Samish, as
engrossing and enrolling clerk, had to prepare a corrected version of any
bill that had been modified through amendment or otherwise before its final
passage. If a bill from the Assembly was modified in the California
State Senate it had to be sent back to the Assembly. The modified version
had to checked by the engrossing and enrolling clerk in every detail, including
punctuation and spelling. If a bill passed both houses it had to be
printed up before being delivered to the governor for his signature. If the
bill was vetoed by the governor it had to go back to the legislature where
a vote for overriding the veto could be take place. If a bill was passed
and became law through signature by the governor or the overriding of a
governor's veto it had to be delivered by the
engrossing and enrolling clerk to the secretary of state for filing. Thus each
step had to be verified or performed by the engrossing and enrolling clerk.
Samish knew all the critical points where legislation could be delayed.

There were two other elements to Samish's power. He was the lobbyist
for major interest groups such as liquor store owners and brewers. These
interest groups could deliver a large bloc of votes of friends and relatives
at Samish's command. The interest groups also gave Samish control over large
funds, what are now called a "slush funds," which he could spend at his
discretion. Samish thus had a political machine but it was organized
through interest groups rather than a political party organization.

Arthur Samish was born in East Los Angeles but grew up in San Francisco.
His father, an Austrian immigrant, abandoned Arthur and his mother when
Arthur was about four years old. His mother moved in with her mother and
devoted her life to raising Arthur. They experienced the San Francisco
Earthquake of 1906 when Arthur was eight. Their home was destroyed and
they lived in a variety of places and finally, in the seventh grade,
Arthur quit school. He worked as a delivery boy, errand boy and grocery
store clerk until, at about age sixteen, he became an office boy for
a law firm. Later, through a social club he belonged to, he met the
tax collector for San Francisco. The tax collector offered Arthur a
job which he took. The tax office gave Arthur Samish the opportunity
to meet the other important politicians of San Francisco, such as the
sheriff. He reveled in the comradery of San Francis politics. His job
in the tax office ended when it was discovered that he was not old
enough to be a San Francisco voter, a condition required by law for employment in
the tax office. He then secured a position as secretary-treasurer of
an association of liquor retailers. This association of saloon owners and
retail liquor stores was for political action in their common interest.
It happened that the movement to prohibit the sale of alcoholic berverages,
"Prohibition," was rapidly gaining ground. Samish was in charge of collecting
contributions to fight prohibition. The effort to head off prohibition
was unsuccessful and prohibition became law through a constitutional
amendment.

Out of a job, Samish moved to Sacramento where through a friend he met
the private secretary of the Hiram Johnson, Governor of California.
Through this connection Samish got a job with the California Division
of Motor Vehicles (DMV). There he met his future wife, Merced Sullivan,
the daughter of Dan Sullivan, the state printer and president of the
California State Federation of Labor. Arthur Samish was collecting a
lot of significant political ties.

Samish decided that he wanted to become affiliated with the California
State Legislature and he was able to become a page in the California
State Assembly. This just involved doing errands but he met more
politicians and was able to move up to a clerical job before becoming
the Engrossing and Enrolling Clerk for the state legislature, as was
mentioned previously. The control over the movement of legislation
that the engrossing and enrolling clerk had was important for politicians
and others who wanted to slow down the processing of legislation.

Samish accepted the appointment by the governor's office to a position
in the California State Division of Markets. This organization had been
set up to encourage the creation of cooperatives in the marketing of
agricultural and other products such as fish. It also served to enforce some system
of price controls.

Arthur Samish was now thoroughly enmeshed in California politics.
California politics differed from other states' politics in significant
ways. There has been cycles of radicalism and reaction. In the early
days of California politics there were some radical tendencies, as
evidenced for example by Dennis Kearney and the California Workingmen's
Party. But this was followed by a period of forty years of political
control by the Southern Pacific Railroad. This period of reaction came
to an end in 1910 when Hiram Johnson was elected governor. Johnson used
his influence to get the legislature to pass measures which created the
following political institutions which make California state politics
unique.

The Intiative Process: Voters can circulate intiative petitions
which, if enough signatures are obtained, will put proposed laws or
constituional amendments on the ballot and if they gain enough votes
will become law, largely immune from being overturned by the legislature.

The Referendum Process: Voters, through collecting adequate signatures,
can put legislation up to a vote by the electorate and can thus veto
legislation passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.

The Recall Process: Voter, through collecting adequate signatures, can
put the recall of public officials, including judges, on the ballot.

Nonpartisan Election of City and County Officials: An attempt to
prevent political parties from dominating local government.

Cross Filing System: Candidates were allowed to seek the nomination
in other parties' primaries beside their own. This weakened the influence
of political parties.

The Regulation of Public Utilities: Established the California
State Public Utilities Commission that has to approve any change in the
rates charged by electrical power, gas and telephone companies among others.

Regulation of Railroads:

Hiram Johnson also secured passage of workmen's compensation laws,
wage and hour laws for women and children, and women's suffrage.

The political measures which weakened political parties in California
provided the opportunity for lobbyists to become part of the political
scene.

Arthur Samish the most notorious of the lobbyist entered the field
by sheer chance. A friend of Samish who represented the interest of trading
stamp companies asked Samish to take over for him. Trading stamps were
given out by stores for purchases by their customers. When a customer
accumulated enough of these they could be turned in to the trading stamp
companies, such as S&H Green Stamps, for valuable items. Customers could
get through saving trading stamps some luxury items that they would not buy
outright. Generally chains stores gave out green stamps whereas independent
stores did not because of the cost. The independent stores were trying
to promote legislation through their lobbyist to ban trading stamps in
California. Samish took over as the lobbyist for the trading stamp
companies and the chain stores. He solicited contributions from them
to use to promote the election of legislators who would oppose a ban
on trading stamps. In this he was successful and his career as "a
guy who could get things done" was launched. His basic strategy was
established in that first case in 1923, "select and elect."

Samish' next big case was representing the interest of a bus company
operating between San Francisco and San Jose. Many of the little towns
in which the bus line stopped levied a tax on it. The combined load of
all these separate taxes was overwhelming. Samish attributed the local
taxes to the political influence of the Southern Pacific Railroad that
carried passengers along the same route. SP used its local influence
to freeze out the competition from bus lines. Samish convinced bus line
operators throughout the state to fund a Motor Carriers Association with
Samish as secretary-manager with full control. Samish was able to
convince the Legislature to pass a law declaring bus lines to be
public utilities. He then organized an initiative drive to put on the
ballot a measure which would exempt all bus lines and truckers from
any tax except a four percent tax. The campaign was based upon reason
and analysis. This measure lost by 70,000 votes.

At the next opportunity Samish raised more funds for the bus line and
truckers tax initiative. This time Samish did not rely upon the reasonable
merits of the measure. Instead he had billboards put around the state
which showed a big, ugly pig and the slogan, "DRIVE THE HOG FROM THE ROAD!
VOTE YES ON PROPOSITION NUMBER 2." Millions of handbills with the
same picture and slogan were handed out. The public were led to believe
the proposition had something to do with roadhogs and the measure
passed by 700,000 votes. Samish did not place much credence in the rationality
of the voting public ever again. This was the mid-1920's.

The cross filing shifted the emphasis in political campaign from the
election to the primary. If a candidate could win the nomination of
both parties then the race was won. The turnout in the primaries was
relatively light. Someone like Samish who could supply campaign funds
for a candidate in the primaries could influence the final results.
Candidates were appreciative of campaign support in the primary because
public interest was lower and regular campaign contributions harder to
raise.

In 1934 a socialist, Upton Sinclair, won the nomination for governor
of the Democrat Party. His program, End Poverty In California, involved
putting the unemployed to work growing food in state-run farms sounded
good to some and like socialism to others. Business interests, Republicans
and conservative Democrats combined to elect the Republican candidate,
Frank Merriam. Samish also supported Merriam but not for ideological
reasons. Samish had long ago adopted the operating principle that
he would not concern himself about a candidate's party or ideological
affiliation; he only cared about how the candidate would vote on the
legislation relating to the interests that Samish represented. He was
expecting support from Merriam on the legislation he promoted. Merriam
vetoed a bill which would allow the drilling for petroleum in the
coastal tidelands. Merriam who was a Dry (prohibitionist) also
thwarted Samish on legislation Samish promoted for the alcoholic
beverage industry.

During the 1930's Samish perfected his system. One component of it
was a network of intelligence about what was going on in the government
in Sacramento. He had a team of men and women who attended each of the
legislative sessions open to the public. They were not known to be
his agents and did not even know each other. Each day Samish would get
a report from each of his agents separately and give them assignments.
He probably knew better than anyone else in Sacramento what was
happening politically. No one else had the system for consolidating
information that he had.

People who had a problem or feared they would have a problem with
legislation sought Samish for a solution. For example, a bill was
introduced that would limit the fee an employment agency could charge
for getting someone a job to seven percent of the first month's pay.
Talent agents in Hollywood charged their clients ten percent of all their
earnings. These talent agents were afraid that the legislation for
employment agencies would be construed as applying to them. They sent
a representative to Samish and he arranged to block the progress of the
bill in the California Senate's Judiary Committee. Two years later similar
bill was introduced and the talent agents now knew because of its wording
that it applied to them. Again their representative went to Samish and
again he arranged for it to be bottled up in a committee, this time the
Assembly Judiary Committee. In this matter the intervention of the
lobbyist Samish prevented the unjustified and harmful intervention of
the State in a free market.

At this point it is appropriate to make the observation that the
unfettered operation of the government does not produce an optimal
result; instead it is a very imperfect system that operates far from
the social optimum. The other imperfections of society, such as the
actions of lobbyists, may sometimes produce a result that is better
than what would occur in their absence. Stated another way, imperfections
are not additive. One imperfection may counterbalance another imperfection.

But as often as not government intervention in competitive markets comes
from some interest group, through political influence, commandeering the
police power of the state to restrict competition in a market. The public
rationale for this is usually the public interest. Thus the state does
"bad" while professing to do "good." Perhaps the source of the problem
is the lack of constraints on governmental action. Freedom of speech and
religion are implemented by constitutionally forbidding government to
interfere in these areas. The lack of a constitutional constraint on
economic intervention creates a treasure trove for special interest groups
if they can capture it through the political process. This means promoting
the candidacy of cooperative politicians; selecting and electing.

Samish not only helped candidates he expected to favor his interest
groups he worked to defeat those he expected to oppose his interest groups.
This he did by supporting opposition candidates. Sometimes he helped
some candidates and then found they did not support him as he expected. Then
he untook to try to defeat them in their next race and thus provide an
example for other politicians who might consider breaking with Samish.
He was not always successful in his efforts and made some bitter enemies
in his attempts. But all in all Samish ran an effective, efficient
operation.

Elmer Ritter Rusco, who did his doctoral dissertation at U.C.-
Berkeley on Samish judged that Samish had a better organized political
operation during the decades from 1930 to 1950 than either the
Democrat or Republican Parties in California.

In statewide contests Samish welded his special interest groups into
an efficient machine that could deliver a large enough bloc of votes
to swing the election. For example, he represented the 50,000 liquor
retailers. Each owner of a liquor store could be counted on to vote
the way Samish asked, as could the family of the liquor store owner.
Each store would also have a few customers who also could be counted to vote
Samish' recommendations. Samish felt that he had about 500,000 votes
he could direct. To gain that bloc of votes from Samish politicians would
have to "play ball" with Samish. Thus Samish had a political machine.

Samish used his political influence to assure that the person who
got elected as Speaker of the Assembly was friendly to him. The Speaker
of the Assembly is second only to the governor in political power in the
state government. What Samish needed from the Speaker was friendly
representation on two key committees of the Assembly. These two
committees were the Committee
on Public Morals, which had jurisdiction over the sale of alcohol sales
and cigarets and over racetracks and the Committee on Revenue and Taxation.
In the California Senate the committee appointments were handled by
a Senate Committee on Committees. The two key committees Samish was
interested in the Senate was the Committee on Governmental Efficiency,
which corresponded to the Assembly's Committee on Public Moral and
the Senate Committee on Revenue and Taxation.

Samish had a number of humorous episodes over the years. Once an
assemblyman who had had too much to drink took the floor to criticize
a bill that would benefit the trucking industry. Samish who was promoting
that bill and counting on the assemblyman's support was shocked until
he realized that the assemblyman was just a bit drunk. Samish sent him
a note explaining the situation. The assemblyman read the note and
said, "Now that I have told you the bad things about this bill..." He
then proceded to defend the bill.

One of the most infamous relationship of Samish was with Lewis Rosenstiel
of Schenley, a manufacturer of whiskey. Rosenstiel was jealous of the
market share enjoyed by a whiskey called Ten High, a product of Hiram
Walker. It was the largest selling whiskey in California. Rosenstiel
wanted Samish to do something about Ten High. Samish asked Rosenstiel
to tell him some characteristic of Ten High. Rosenstiel said that it
was aged three years. That was all Samish needed. He had a bill proposed
that required all whiskey sold in California to be aged four years or more.
This was presented as being in the public's interest because it supposedly
increased the quality of the whiskey available to the public, but it
was simply a way for Schenley to destroy its competition.

This was of course an abomination. But Samish was responsible for almost
all of the legislation concerning the California alcoholic beverage
industries and some judged California code to be the best in the nation.

Samish' downfall came as a result of two articles about him in
Collier's magazine. The articles detailed Samish's power and power
and arrogance, but the key element was a quotation from then Governor
of California Earl Warren. When Governor Warren was asked who had more
influence over the Legislature, himself or Arthur Samish he said,

On matters that affect his clients, Artie unquestionably has more power
than the governor.

Articles had been written about Samish before but none created the
sensation caused by those twe in Collier's. Afterwards former
associates in government had to distance themselves from Samish.
A Committee was convened to study the influence of lobbyists and
Samish was called to testify. The committee hired a special investigator.
The Governor called for legislation regulating lobbyists.
The Legislature responded with the Collier Act and then the Erwin Act.
The Legislature also voted to ban Arthur Samish from its building.
That was of no consequence because Samish almost never came to the
Legislature, the legislators came to him.

A key element of Samish's power was his influence on the committee
structure of the Assembly. This was achieved by making sure the
Speaker was someone favorably disposed towards him. In 1953 a group
in the Assembly, calling themselves the Good Government Group, successfully
promoted the election of a Speaker not under Samish's influence.
The new speaker, James W. Silliman, organized the Assembly's committee
structure to eliminate Samish control. Thereafter, in 1954, the Assembly took
administration of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act away from the
State Board of Equalization, an organization Samish was able to control.
Samish's major source of funding came from the organization of California
brewers and was based upon Samish's ability to prevent the passage of
new taxes on alcoholic beverages and the maintainance of "fair trade" laws
which prevented price competition for alcoholic beveraages.

Samish became so notorious that Estes Kefauver, the U.S. Senator from
Tennessee, who ran the Special U.S. Senate Committee to Investigate Crime
in Interstate Commerce, came to San Francisco and subpoenaed Samish to
testify at televised hearings. The investigation began to focus on
the slush funds that Samish's interest groups provided for him to
help favorable candidates and hinder political enemies. The expenditure
of the funds often was in cash and not documented. Samish's clients
had no problem with this system. For the government the problem was
that there was no way of distinguishing the expenditure of this money
for Samish's own personal benefit and for the benefit of his clients.
If Samish spent money from this fund for himself or gave it to someone
other than for the purposes of his clients then it must be counted
as personal income and was subject to the income tax. To not have
reported such income was tax evasion and subject to fine or imprisonment.
There had been some $72 thousand in payments made by an advertising
firm that Samish had recommended for consideration by the Schenley
company. The checks had not been made out to Samish but he received
possession of them and the IRS deemed it tax evasion. In 1953 Samish was
sentenced to three years in Federal prison and a $40,000 fine. He
appealed his conviction but the Appellate Court, while making some
comments favorable to Samish, did not reverse the conviction. Samish
appealed to the Supreme Court but was denied a hearing. Many influential
figures appealed to court to grant probation instead of prison time
but to no avail. Samish spent 26 months in McNeil Island prison in
the State of Washington. He also had to pay nearly a million dollar
of taxes assessed by the IRS on the slush funds he mangaged. After
his release Arthur Samish retired from politics.